Labour MP faces expulsion

A leftwing Labour MP, who praised the "sacrifice" of IRA bombers, faces the threat of expulsion from the party for his outburst, which was widely condemned yesterday.

John McDonnell, a member of the Socialist Campaign Group, who unsuccessfully tried to unseat the prime minister during the Iraq crisis, horrified the Labour leadership by declaring that it was time to honour people such as Bobby Sands, the IRA hunger striker who died in 1981 during his prison protest.

At a republicans' meeting this week in London, the MP for Hayes and Harlington said: "We are in the last stage of imperialist intervention in Ireland and only armed struggle has stopped it. It is about time we started honouring those people involved in that armed struggle. It was the bombs and bullets and sacrifices made by the likes of Bobby Sands that brought Britain to the negotiating table. The peace we have now is due to the unilateral action of the IRA."

Mr McDonnell said the Irish community in Britain needed to be "reawakened" because the Good Friday agreement had given people a false sense of security. Attacking Tony Blair's decision to postpone the Northern Ireland assembly elections, he said: "Pressure needs to be put on Blair. We've allowed the judicial system to abuse Irish people again."

David Trimble, the Ulster Unionists' leader, led the condemnation of Mr McDonnell yesterday. He branded the remarks of Mr McDonnell - who is the chairman of the Labour party's Irish Society, and who recently invited the convicted IRA gunrunner Martin Ferris to address a meeting at Westminster - as worse than anything the suspended Labour MP George Galloway had said about Iraq.

"Mr McDonnell's remarks about the IRA, apart from being completely wrong, are crass, insensitive and an insult to the thousands of British people, police and servicemen who have been murdered, maimed or bereaved by the actions of these terrorists.

"To label terrorists as brave, and to lay blame for the murders, bombs and beatings of Irish republicans at the government's door, is a disgusting accusation. Mr McDonnell's statement is much worse than any comments by George Galloway. He should be expelled from the Labour party immediately."

A Labour spokesman underlined the deep anger in the party. "These comments do not represent the views of the Labour party [which] condemns unreservedly all atrocities perpetrated by the IRA and other paramilitaries. The ac tions of terrorists [were] never justified in Northern Ireland."

It is understood that Mr McDonnell's speech will be formally looked in to, and that it could end in his expulsion from the party.

Labour sources refused to be drawn on whether he could follow Mr Galloway, suspended after calling for British troops not to fight in Iraq. It is understood that the Labour leadership is horrified by Mr McDonnell's warm words about terrorists.

Mr McDonnell has been a thorn in the side of the Labour leadership since his election in 1997 for the Hayes and Harlington constituency close to Heathrow airport, the scene of IRA mortar attacks in 1994. In the run-up to the Iraq war, he called for a special party conference to consider Mr Blair's position. Leftwingers distanced themselves after his outburst backfired.

Mr McDonnell lists "generally fomenting the overthrow of capitalism" among his interests in Who's Who.